Reduced mobility is a common plight of individuals with lower leg injuries or individuals who are recovering from lower leg surgery, particularly older individuals. Walkers have been used for decades as aids to improve mobility and sometimes as well to promote healing for leg, ankle, and foot injuries or surgeries. Typically, a walker has four legs with end caps and a structure or frame that surrounds a user's front and sides during use. Some walkers include two or more wheels or casters instead of end caps to make movement of the walker easier. These typical walkers are adequate as walking aids, but in many situations, a user must prevent contact with the floor by an injured foot or ankle. In these circumstances, a user can use only the good leg for bearing weight. Thus, in order to use a typical walker, the user is obliged to use a “step-hop-step-hop- . . . ” gait with the healthier leg, an unnatural and uncomfortable manner of getting around. Furthermore, hopping can be difficult or impossible for some older or heavier individuals.
Besides a user's need to hop, other problems are encountered when using a conventional walker. As a prime example, due to their design for use on level or flat walkways, walkers are generally of little use on stairs. They are unstable and unwieldy on stairs at best, and often cannot be used at all on stairs, due to the distance separating front and rear legs being wider than a typical stair step depth. Moreover, the problem of hopping is exacerbated when the individual using a walker needs to climb or descend stairs. This can happen frequently, since stairs are often encountered when a user visits a doctor's office, a physical therapist, and even in some cases, around the home.
Various attempts have been made to modify walkers for use on stairs. These modified walkers, or other mobility aid devices that can be used on stairs, generally have been unwieldy and/or unsuitable for use on a flat walkway. For example, some mobility aid devices have sets of legs with feet or skids at the bases of the legs with the feet or skids parallel to the forward direction of motion of the walker. These sets of legs and feet are configured to fit on two or three stair steps at a time. Some other devices require a complicated series of adjustments for the leg lengths to accommodate stair riser heights or user height. For example, each leg may require loosening of a threaded key or screw to enable adjustment of the length of that leg, and retightening of the key or screw to prevent subsequent undesired changes in length. Having to do this at the foot of a stairway, and then again at the top of a stairway, can be arduous for someone required to stand on only one leg during the adjustment process.
Some modified walkers have included a pad for support of a user's knee or lower leg during use of the walker. These walkers are either unsuitable for use on stairs, or are difficult to adjust between use on stairs and use on level walkways.